City provides too little from budget for the poor
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
An observer criticized the city administration on Friday for only allocating Rp 28 billion of a total Rp 11 trillion of the 2003 city budget for the underprivileged but allocating Rp 135 billion for the Public Order Office, notorious for its evictions of the poor.
"It's ironic and regrettable that the administration has allocated Rp 135 billion to evict poor people and allotted Rp 26 billion or 0.2 percent of the total budget for the poor," sociologist La Ode Ida, chairman of the Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (Fitra), said in a discussion.
La Ode said most of the Rp 11 trillion budget would be spent on administrative and operational matters, including Rp 3.98 trillion for general administration, Rp 3.6 trillion for operations and maintenance and Rp 2.24 trillion for security.
He opined that the administration did not focus on the social and economic problems of the city residents, such as poverty, unemployment, security and transportation.
Also ironic is the allotment of a fund for Governor Sutiyoso, Deputy Governor Fauzi Bowo and 85 city councillors, which amounts to a total of Rp 105 billion this year.
"How could 87 people received two percent of our total budget when compared with the 12 million people of Jakarta," La Ode said.
He questioned the allocation of 90 million a year or Rp 250,000 a day for the governor's "morning coffee" and Rp 100 million for health allowance.
"It would be better and cheaper for the administration to provide health insurance than allocating that amount of money," La Ode, who is also a lecturer at the University of Indonesia, said.
He also queried the unclear allocation of Rp 42 billion for an honorarium and transportation for city councillors and Rp 1 billion for councillors' clothes.
"It's sad that we allocate such a huge amount of money for a few people while only Rp 26 billion is allocated for the 1.2 million poor people in the city," he said.
After reviewing 14 bound documents on the budget, Fitra found that some Rp 540 billion of the budget could easily be corrupted due to unclear explanation of its use.
This includes a Rp 3.3 billion contingency fund for the governor and Rp 2.8 billion for a similar fund for the deputy governor.
The budget also allocated Rp 414 billion for the city secretary, which would then be donated to political parties and social organizations, and Rp 114 billion for the secretary's emergency fund.
Other unclear items allocated in the budget include an Rp 8.5 billion allowance for city councillors and Rp 3 billion for the city empowerment office.
Meanwhile, the Jakarta Development Planning Office secretary Nurfaqih claimed the budget proposal could still be reviewed since it had not been approved by the council yet.
"The proposal, such as the budget for governor, could still be reviewed. We found some technical errors in the proposal," Nurfaqih said in the discussion.
He claimed the drafting of the budget proposal involved the public, including Fitra and the economic and management development institute of the University of Indonesia.
Governor Sutiyoso is scheduled to officially submit the budget proposal to the council on Monday. It is expected to be approved by the end of this month.
But many doubt that it would be possible to discuss the budget proposal in only two weeks, which might result in a delay in the implementation of city projects this year.